Irreplaceable
by Darmed
Summary: Sherlock Holmes did not trust. He did not trust and he shouldn't have trusted and he was never wrong. But, most of all, Sherlock did not feel.


_**Irreplaceable**_

_Sherlock Holmes did not trust. He did not trust and he shouldn't have trusted and he was never wrong. But, most of all, Sherlock did not feel._

_3:14_

"And what do you think?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow when he didn't receive the answer he'd hoped for.

"Traitor," he mumbled, discarding the discussion with a wave towards the skull sitting next to him on the coffee table.

He flopped around, turning his back on the empty, accusing eye-sockets.

"Well, what do you know," he mumbled into the queen-and-country pillow he'd moved_stolen_ from _that _chair.

He sat up with a start and moved towards the window.

He'd thought it was a bluff.

He'd pointedly told _him, _too.

A bluff to scare him into submission, as it was all those times before, only Sherlock did not _submit _and this time he had not responded, for it was not in Sherlock's nature to _care_.

He'd been too confident and now he was stuck with an empty house he no longer called a home, for a house was not a home without him_him_him and what was he going to do now; he was stuck with answers he did not want from a skull that did _not feel_ and this _bloody _pillow that only smelt like aftershave and knitted sweaters and that distinguished smell of tea he'd grown to associate with _JohnJohn_John.

Perhaps he should've done what he'd wanted to do from the start.

He should've _pinned _John Watson _down. _

Quite literally, indeed. Pin him down as he had that butterfly in his fourth grade or pin him down as he had his first ever pet mouse and force him to _stayandneverleavehim. _

But he'd expected John to never leave, to be different. He'd expected himself to be _wrong,_ but _no, _he was never wrong and he should've _known_.

He didn't want to be disappointed. He didn't _want _to be, but he _was. _

Not in John. God no. That would be foolish.

No, disappointed in himself.

Sherlock Holmes didn't trust. He did not trust and he shouldn't have trusted and he was _never wrong. _But, most of all, Sherlock did not _feel_. He did not remember feeling and therefore, he had never _felt._

Disappointed in those people who thought he _could_. And now he was _alone_.

He walked to the kitchen when he realised he couldn't _do _anything.

He didn't know _how _to do anything and he _needed _John. Needed. _Needed. _

But Sherlock didn't _need _or _care_. Sherlock _did. _But Sherlock could not _do. _What was he going to do if he _couldn't _do?

He attempted to make tea, but John's tea was always _warm _and most certainly did _not_ taste like dishwater.

He drank it anyway.

_8:42_

Lestrade phoned.

Sherlock noticed he was not nearly as happy about a triple murder (all at the same time; _strange, interesting-) _but _no, _he couldn't be bothered because he was Sherlock Holmes and it seemed Sherlock _did _feel and _could _be wrong and yet still could not _do. _Only now, he noticed, he did no longer _want _to do. He no longer felt the need to move, only _thinkthinkthink. _

He lay on the couch, his face pressed into that damned _pillow_ that now smelt like mints and flowers and _Christmas _and _John_ and that he'd tried to throw away, but those Goddamned _feelings; _oh how he hated them, _useless_silly_foolish._

_9:15_

Nearly seven hours.

It had been nearly seven hours since John left.

Sherlock had grown frustrated.

Frustrated at the skull because it did not speak or admire or accept or _feel_.

Frustrated for feeling _too much. _For not wanting to _do._ For lying there, in his God-ugly, horrible gown which he loved but John hated and he'd do _anything_, even throw the gown out, and sniffling into one of those itchy sweaters John'd worn so proudly, his eyes swollen from _godknowswhat _and his face blank.

His mind, however, was anything _but, _chanting a steady mantra of _pleasepleasepleasepleasedon'tleavemealone, _because Sherlock's mind was a scary place and it kept telling him, in between the _pleasepleaseplease, _that he'd already been left like all those others had left him and no wonder, because he was a _freak_wrongwrong_wrong._

_10:13_

When John Watson dragged his suitcase back up the stairs after a childishly long fit of anger and annoyance and guilt and _leaving,_ he expected the house to be empty.

He expected for Sherlock to be bouncing about a horribly mangled body and exposing their affairs by the size of their jeans _without his help_. And he fully expected to be met with his amusingly arrogant mug when he'd solved it and he would return _home _and John would have gone crawling back like a sick puppy.

He did _not _expect Sherlock Holmes asleep on the couch in that _hideous _dressing gown _he_ hated but _Sherlock _loved and he'd grown to accept as something that _belonged_, eyes red as his usually pale cheeks, clutching John's favourite sweater and having seemingly stolen his favourite pillow – the pillow Sherlock'd gotten him to make him feel at _home._

And then he realised how stupid he'd been, for Sherlock would never want to get rid of him and _could _not get rid of him and always appreciated him, for here was where John Watson belonged and Sherlock would _be lost without his __blogger._

He put down his suitcase and ignored it because he had been sillystupid_foolish_ for leaving and he'd never do it again because Sherlock _cared _and _felt._

John looked into the teapot for only seconds and noticed the bubbles regular tea was not supposed to produce almost automatically, pouring it into the sink, where it hissed and smoked.

Sherlock needed John to _do _and John needed Sherlock to_ be._

Yet, before he put the kettle on, he took the pillow from underneath the curly, sweaty hairs, because that pillow belonged on _his _chair and everything would be the same as before and_ home_, for his house was not a home without his chair and his tea and his _Sherlock _and to John, Sherlock was irreplaceable.

And, when he looked at the discarded and ignored skull, John knew he was just as irreplaceable to Sherlock.


End file.
